Far be it for me to question what a person chooses to do with his life, so when I came across some videos of a guy named “The Thunder Shin Man” breaking baseball bats with his shins, I thought, “F*ck it, dude’s gotta make a living, right?” Grand Master Dr. Mak Yuree has been recognized with prestigious honors by basically every martial arts organization in the world, so I know better than to make fun of him, especially since his website advertises the ability to teach you how to “break bones like chocolate bars.” So if Thunder Shin Man happens to read this… please don’t kill me.

Back in May, Dr. Yuree set the world record for breaking bats with his shins, and again, out of respect, I’m going to assume that this is a very prestigious record and only a complete and total badass should bother trying for it. Using his secret South Asian method of “Iron Shin Conditioning”, Dr. Yuree broke two wooden baseball bats in half just by kicking them (pictured above). And that’s totally cool. It reminds me of the time in middle school that I beat five kids in a row in pencil fighting. I may go back next week and challenge them again.

On November 14, Yuree went for a new record, as he tried to break three bats with one kick. The results didn’t go as well as I think he would have hoped. Perhaps someone left the chocolate bar in the freezer. Seriously, it kills my shins just to watch the first kick on the video of his record breaking effort, but follow along anyway for more of the Thunder Shin Man’s exploits…

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UPDATE: This is the actual video.

Bruce Lee is one of those rare icons of film that was as badass in real life as he was in his movies. I heard that one time he caught a bullet in between his asscheeks while he was procreating with a stegasaurus. Unfortunately, that wasn’t caught on tape, but this was: It’s a pair of older Nokia ads featuring Bruce [allegedly] playing ping pong with nunchaku and I hate to sound impressed, but I’m impressed. And if that wasn’t enough for you, he then tapes a piece of sandpaper to his ‘chuks and lights a cigarette with them. I actually tried that once in a bar. My results weren’t exactly similar. via Roger Ebert’s blog, via @Enrico_Pallazo_

So, this is new to me. I was impressed by all the spinning and flipping and kicking and whatnot, but I didn’t know how to classify it.  It was too cool to be gymnastic tumbling, and not nearly gay enough to be Capoeira.  Turns out it’s something called martial arts tricking.  You learn something new every day, I guess.

This clip is part of a much longer video taken from Loopkicks Camp.  There were parts that had way cooler spins and flips, but this is the section that was set to MGMT’s “Electric Feel,” and I’m powerless to resist the allure of hipster bands that have two good songs to go with their stupid hair and skinny jeans.

Anyhoo, long story short, these guys have a real future playing the action movie henchman who does a bunch of crazy kicks and flips before the good guy shoots him.

Expertly wielding nunchucks: not just for cracking heads any more.  One can also use nunchaku for opening champagne bottles and hitting line drives at the batting cage.  That’s gotta be a little unsettling for the guy in the next cage over.  There you are, trying to relax by hitting some fastballs after work, and out the corner of your eye is a maniac attacking balls with a set of nunchaku.

But it’s Japan — I guess they’re used to seeing weird stuff all the time.  Why, if I’m to believe the movies I’ve seen, a young girl can’t walk through a forest without the trees coming to life and branch-raping her.

[Japan Probe via Home Run Derby]

Don't sweat it pal, everyone has an extraordinary miss now and then. It's just like the time I picked up that girl at the tavern, and I thought for sure she was a virgin. Well, two weeks later I'm in the emergency room with a tenacious social disease. And the doc said the ailment is only transmitted by males. Boy, was my face red . . . as well as other parts of my body. -KD

Wow, those are some expert karate skills. I especially like the black guy who looks like Jim Kelly who played Williams in Enter the Dragon, and showed that '70s cinema wouldn't let African-Americans even survive kung-fu movies. Or was it that they wouldn't let guys named Jim Kelly win it all? I don't know, I'll have to watch that movie again. -KD